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Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

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71–80 of 459 posts

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#71

I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is an aspect in any public debate.

And yet in the UK we have a notorious data miner in the heart of No 10 giving an edict for all data from government websites to be fed into a central location for targetting.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#72
post #12

US expatriates are the only expats in the world that have to file annual taxes (and report foreign bank accounts). It's ridiculous for most of us (99% are not tax exiles or tax evaders, we just left the USA for our own reasons). I wonder if Snowden files taxes?

Yeah, it is a bit annoying, and I can imagine it is beyond a bit annoying if you are making income somewhere that doesn't have a treaty with the U.S. I thankfully don't get double-taxed here in Canada, but I'm pretty sure it's possible to have a marginal tax rate greater than 100% between U.S. Federal income taxes and some other systems.

>I thankfully don't get double-taxed here in Canada

I bet many of your fellow Canadian taxpayers (of which I am one) are not so thankful for this arrangement. Then again, I fall strictly in the "citizenship is a privilege, not a right" camp.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#73

I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is an aspect in any public debate.

That's great to hear. Unfortunately, his actions haven't really done anything in the US. I wish I could say otherwise, but I haven't seen a single thing change. Privacy still isn't an issue that's on most people's radar. The government still does what it did before and likely a lot more. I have a ton of respect for Snowden, but he severely overestimated how much Americans care about privacy, spying, surveillance, or anything like that they mostly can't even understand.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#74
post #60

Customers who bought this item also bought - ALFA AWUS036NEH Long Range WIRELESS 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USBAdapter - Yubico - YubiKey 5 NFC - Two Factor Authentication USB and NFC Security Key, Fits USB-A Ports and Works with Supported NFC Mobile Devices EDIT:formatting

Is it even safe to buy yubikeys on Amazon given the counterfeit problem?

Guess there could be two attack vectors, one that is easier to avoid and the other not so much.

The first one being a targeted attack. Then any ordering of Yubikeys can leave to vulnerable as the supply chain can be intercepted (because they see it's you and switch out the key to a counterfeit one). This can be solved by going to a in-person store and buying it there. Then there is no risk of you being personally targeted as you can go to any store.

The second one, is where all keys sold being counterfeit, which you cannot solve by going to a in-person store or ordering online. Not sure how you could avoid this vector.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#75
post #9

Does anyone know how much money he gets from every book / ebook? I think buying it is, at least for some people, very much a support Snowden thought.

I'm self published on Amazon and can speak to that, but I see that this is actually published by a publisher (Metropolitan Books)

In that case, from what I have learned from speaking to a few NYT Best selling authors, he's getting peanuts per sale, though it's very likely he got an advance in the range of $50k.

He won't actually get a cent from sales until his share goes above whatever his advance was.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devils-advocate: The U.S. government still provides expats services such as the State Department, potentially U.S. government intervention to help evacuate citizens from troubled areas etc...

So does Australia whilst not taxing on worldwide income.

And in what way is that good for or fair to the citizens who contribute to the system that enables you to take advantage of these services?

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#77
post #60

Customers who bought this item also bought - ALFA AWUS036NEH Long Range WIRELESS 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi USBAdapter - Yubico - YubiKey 5 NFC - Two Factor Authentication USB and NFC Security Key, Fits USB-A Ports and Works with Supported NFC Mobile Devices EDIT:formatting

Is it even safe to buy yubikeys on Amazon given the counterfeit problem?

You can verify whether you received a genuine key at:

https://www.yubico.com/genuine/

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#78
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It costs over a grand to quit the club known as "citizenship" you're going to want citizenship in wherever you reside first when you give up US citizenship (you could choose to be stateless, but that makes more problems than it solves). Doing this does not absolve you of existing debts in the eyes of the IRS. And finally, you'll be interviewed at the consulate and if your stated reason for giving up citizenship is "t…

You can choose to be stateless? I thought I've read in UK media that countries are not allowed to make a person stateless. This is in the context of ISIS fighters with dual-nationality, these people are having their British citizenship stripped. Caused a bit of a hoohah with the Canadians.

IIRC nationality is a human right (article 15) [0], so a state cannot strip you of your last nationality. But, it is only a right, so you can strip yourself of your last nationality and go stateless.

[0] https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#79

I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is an aspect in any public debate.

And yet in the UK we have a notorious data miner in the heart of No 10 giving an edict for all data from government websites to be fed into a central location for targetting.

Sorry, what/who are you referring to?
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